It's hard to imagine the richly carved Rococo table at the heart of the Taking Shape exhibition being of any practical use at all.

Even if you managed to balance something on its elaborate curves, it would be visually overwhelmed by the ostentatious, attention- grabbing piece of furniture.

But the table proves the point of the exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, which suggests that these highly decorated objects are in fact sculptures in their own right.

Created in 1670 by Johann Paul Schor, it is a triumph of form over function and the star of this fabulous show, which is a collaboration between the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles
and the Institute.

The Getty pieces, including the table and an unlikely cupboard entitled Pluto Abducting Prosperine, are predominantly French and are complemented by Baroque and Rococo works from Temple Newsam house, which are mainly English.

The Institute's Rebecca Land says: "We are inviting people to see these works as sculpture by taking them out of context, out of the domestic interior and putting them in an all white gallery space.

"They are highly decorative and supposedly functional, but you look at some of them and wonder whether they were ever used for their intended purpose. Others, like the girandole from Temple Newsam, clearly were used but when the candles were were lit it would show itself off as a work of art." After the curlicues, embellishments and decorative fantasies, the neighbouring exhibition in the mezzanine gallery: Sculpture in the Home offers visual relief along with a trip down memory lane.

It is a reproduction of a set of five Arts Council exhibitions that toured the country in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its aim was to make sculpture part of everyday life and it included small-scale pieces by artists including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Rosemary Young and Charles Wheeler.

Much of the work, like Henry Moore's hugging Family Group, concentrates on the home and loved ones, which is understandable given the horrors of war and enforced separations that this generation experienced.

The state-backed vision was that ordinary people would embrace the concept and buy the sculptures for their sideboards, but the reality was that postwar budgets didn't allow for such extravagances.

Still, by all accounts, the effort was much appreciated by the masses, as this 21st century version should be.

The curator has gone to some lengths to give this exhibition's authenticity and has foraged far and wide for fabulous pieces of fifties furniture and wonderful textiles by the likes of Lucienne Day to create room sets for the sculptures.

Taking Shape is in the Main galleries at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, until January 4. Sculpture in the Home: Re staging a post-war initiative is in the mezzanine gallery at the Henry Moore Institute to Jan 4.